After nearly knocking off top-seeded Howards Grove in the semi-finals, Sheboygan Christian suffered a bit of a letdown in the third-place game, falling to St. Mary Catholic 59-46.

The loss relegated the Eagles to a fourth-place finish in the Big East Conference Tournament.

While the Eagles were able to pull to within 10 points a few times in the second half, St. Mary Catholic outscored Sheboygan Christian by 11 points after the break to run away with the game.

Head coach Brett Flipse said his guys didn’t play with their usual tenacity.

“I didn’t think we had a lot of energy,” he said. “I didn’t expect that coming in. Maybe the loss to Howards Grove sapped something out of us. You have to give all the credit to St. Mary. They just beat us up. Every opportunity they had, they took advantage of, and we had no answer for it. I give them all the credit. I don’t think we played one of our better basketball games, but they were good.”

Three players scored in double figures for St. Mary Catholic. Mitchell Fischer led with 14 points. Sam Hoheisel added 12 more and Jordan Lacey poured in 10 points of his own.

Sheboygan Christian got 13 points out of Jacob Stecker and another 10 from Michael Alsum, but the rest of the team struggled to score. Brayden VanEss finished with seven points.

Flipse said his offense struggled to find holes in the defense which led to late-game struggles.

“They played their defense into a position where they were always in position,” he said. “I wouldn’t say they were stifling defensively. We just struggled to run an offense against them. As a team, we didn’t play very well. It wasn’t one of our top notch games and that’s too bad. This is an interesting tournament. It has put a lot of meaningful games at the end of the season and I think that’s good for everyone involved. If we’re going to play this way in the tournament, it’s going to be an early exit.”

Hilbert 41, Oostburg 40 (fifth-place game): Connor Kuhn hit a jumper with five seconds left on the clock to win the game for Hilbert. The basket came one possession after Kuhn clanked both of his free throw opportunities to tie and then go ahead.

Oostburg got 19 points out of Tristan Van Ess, but it wasn’t enough to hold off Kuhn’s late game heroics.

Van Ess didn’t get a ton of help from the rest of the Dutchmen. Dawson Wilterdink and Jake Daane each finished next on the team with six points.